CES: Mammoth Connected Gadget Show Looms; What to Watch For

By Tiernan Ray

DigiPals smartphone screen cleaner.

Folks, The Consumer Electronics Show 2013 will kick off Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, with the usual State of the Industry talks and PowerPoint slides. Yours truly will be there to cover the happenings all week long, God help me.

Something called Maroon 5, which apparently the kids listen to these days, will be there. So will Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson. will.i.am will be on hand, as he has been in past. L.L. Cool J, who is now known as a TV star, will be there, as will Dr. Oz.Ariana Huffington will host Deepak Chopra and others in a discussion of something called the “Digital health revolution.”

But in the meantime, the Street today was gearing up for golf, gambling, and gadgets with a flood of previews telling you what to look for:

ellipticlabs’s touchless computer control.

Brian Blair, Wedge Partners: Expect 13-megapixel cameras “to emerge as the new high-end standard.” OmniVision (OVTI) is one to watch as a sensor provider. On smartphones, bigger screens will be the norm, as “more 4.5 inch and 5 inch screens will be seen next week with the continued directional trend being ‘bigger = better.’ We even understand that there will be an attempt to outbig the Galaxy Note 2 screen with a 6 inch phablet, further blurring the line between huge smartphones and 7 inch tablets.” Corning (GLW) will be one to watch as it shows its “Gorilla Glass 3.” Asian smartphone makers will have a presence, and not just ZTEand Huawei, but also “little-known players like Oppo and Xiaomi.” And once again, he predicts, Qualcomm (QCOM) will be “the brains behind nearly every major global smartphone and tablet. Sure, there will be some examples of competitive offerings, but 2013 mobile will again be owned by Qualcomm.” “The Microsoft (MSFT) Surface tablet thus far has been a dud but expect CES to showcase a number of new entrants into the Windows 8 Tablet segment with more licensees, shapes, sizes and price points than can be tracked.” In TV sets, “the TV OS will be the headline story” as the chips in the sets “take a giant leap” and the user interface gets closer to what you know in a tablet or smartphone.

The i’m Watch Android-based smart watch.

Bobby Burleson, Canaccord Genuity: The show will see Broadcom (BRCM) and Nvidia (NVDA) “garner considerable attention” because of the ramp-up of “Long Term Evolution,” or LTE, 4G cellular links, “and connectivity opportunities.” Three-dimensional printing mavens 3D Systems (DDD) “will be in focus due to the disruptive potential of its technology and business model” and will probably “highlight their Cube (consumer 3D printer), Cubify.com (apps ecosystem for 3D content) and their new additions to their print material portfolio.” Atmel (ATML) will be talking about its touch controller business in multiple gadgets, including Windows 8 tablets, and “While smartphones are likely to drive a diminishing share of Atmel’s overall touch revenue (we estimate roughly 45% in 2013, down from roughly 65% in 2011), notebooks and tablets are more than taking up the slack.” Broadcom’s “open house” for investors will likely focus “on the 802.11ac WiFi opportunity, timing of their 4G LTE solution launch and design traction for their newly launched BCM28155 integrated SoC (integrated Apps processor, GPU, ISP and HSPA+ Thin Modem – designed into Samsung Galaxy S2+).” Intel (INTC) will show “newer touch enabled convertible hybrid designs” and “their new low power Atom processors targeted at Win 8 tablets,” although adoption of ultrabooks will struggle until the things reach a $599 to $799 price point, he thinks. From Nvidia, he’s expecting to hear about “Tegra revenue targets for C2013, the timing of their integrated LTE modem/apps processor launch and the market share gains for Kepler.”

SkyCross isolated-mode antenna technology.

Daniel Berenbaum, MKM Partners: “We don’t expect a lot in the way of truly innovative products,” he writes. The most interesting part of the show, in his view, is “INTC’s aggressive schedule, with five investor sessions on the calendar – we sense the company is moving toward either a more aggressive reference design program or perhaps even considering manufacturing certain end products itself in order to take full advantage of the compute capabilities in its CPUs.” In the very next breath, Berenbaum writes “We also see a foundry relationship with Apple (AAPL) as increasingly likely [for Intel], as it would be beneficial to both parties. Investor pushback has been along the lines of potential capex requirements from an AAPL foundry arrangement. Our calculations suggest that even half of AAPL’s A6 production would only require to 40k-50k wafers per year, and absorb 1%-2% of INTC’s capacity.”

Add a Comment

We welcome thoughtful comments from readers. Please comply with our guidelines. Our blogs do not require the use of your real name.

Comment

There are 3 comments

JANUARY 4, 2013 9:17 P.M.

Gj wrote:

MSPD. Is not well known but is very heavily levered to the 4g LTE. Rollout and their chips will be in many
small cell networks

JANUARY 5, 2013 11:34 A.M.

Russ Fischer wrote:

" Our calculations suggest that even half of AAPL’s A6 production would only require to 40k-50k wafers per year, and absorb 1%-2% of INTC’s capacity.”"

I think you misplace a decimalpoint on this one. It would be more like one whole Intel fab and 12% of the business....Unless you can figure a way to get 3000 A6 on a 300mm wafer.

JANUARY 5, 2013 11:50 A.M.

Anonymous wrote:

A Chopra Huffington gablet bablet hmm. Seriously. Couldn't you get Mike Tyson and Pam Anderson or Pee Wee Herman and Margaret Thatcher? Or how about the Bieber and Betty White? This is important. Okay. The Dalai Lama and Betty White...

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.